Jiddhu Krishnamurti (1895 - 1986)

EXPLORATION INTO INSIGHT - 'THE CENTRE AND DUALITY'

What is duality? Does duality exist at all?

A: Of course, it exists.

K: I won't postulate. I know nothing of Vedanta, Advaita, scientific theories. We are starting anew, not knowing the assumption of others, which may be secondhand. Wipe them all out. Is there duality? Apart from the factual duality - woman-man, light-darkness, tall-short - is there any other duality?

S: Duality of the `I' and `you' is structured within us.

K: Is there duality apart from the man-woman, dark-light: the obvious? I want to be clear that we are all talking of the same thing. I am not assuming that I am superior, I want to find out if there is duality, psychological duality. There is obvious duality outwardly - tall trees, short trees, different colours, different materials and so on. But psychologically, there is only `what is' and because we are not able to solve `what is', we invent the `what should be'. So there is duality. From the fact, the `what is', there is an abstraction to `what should be', the ideal. But there is only `what is'.

D: They say `what is' is dualistic.

K: Wait, sir, I want to find out. I only know `what is' and not `what should be'.

P: `What is' to me is duality.

K: No. But you are conditioned to duality, you are educated to duality, you function psychologically in duality.

S: The starting point is a dualistic position. It may be due to many factors. K: That is what I want to investigate - whether this dualistic attitude towards life has come into being because the mind has not been able to solve actually `what is'.

A: As far as we can see, the newborn baby does not cry only for mother's milk, for nourishment. It cries whenever it is left alone. Duality is the expression of an inadequacy in oneself for what I am. This begins almost from the beginning of life.

P: It is part of the racial heritage.

S: What is the nature of`what is'?

K: That's what I want to get at. If I can understand `what is', why should there be duality?

S: What is the instrument with which I understand?

B: Does the problem arise because there is no contact with `what is'? Duality is postulated because there is very little contact with `what is'.

K: That is what I want to find out. What is duality? Is duality a measurement?

B: Duality is a comparison.

P: Duality is the sense of`I' as separate from the `not-I'.

K: That is the basic cause of duality. Now, what is the `I' that says you are different? What is the `I'?

A: The centre, the body.

M: The brain.

P: I ask that question and in observing the movement of the `I', I find that it is not something as factual as the chair or the table or the body. In itself it has no existence.

K: May I say something? It may sound absurd. There is no duality for me. There is woman-man, dark-light. We are not talking of that kind of duality. Duality exists only as the `I' and the `not-I', the space between the `I' and the `you', the centre as the `I' and the centre as the `you'. The centre of the `I' looks at you and there is a distance between the `I' and the `you'. The distance can be expanded or narrowed down. This process is consciousness. Don't agree with me? I want to be clear, I want to start slowly.

B: This distance enclosed is consciousness.

M: Distance is in consciousness.

K: No, no, sir, there is distance between you and me sitting here, the physical distance. Then, there is the distance the mind has created which is the `I' and the `you'. The `I' and the `not-I', the `you' and the distance is consciousness.

D: You should distinguish between the physical and the psychological.

S: Is the `I' a concrete entity?

P: That's why I say this enquiry into who is the `I' is difficult.

S: We started with what is duality - the `I' and the `not-I', the centre.

K: The space between this centre and that centre, the movement between this centre and that centre, the vertical, horizontal movement, is consciousness.

P: Is that all?

K: I am just beginning.

A: Sir, you have suggested two centres - this centre which comes across another centre. There is no other centre, sir.

K: I am coming to that. Go slowly, step by step. The other centre is invented by this centre.

A: I don't know. I say that even without the other centre, the distance comes.

S: Achyutji, the `I' creates the `not-I'. It is implied in the `I' process. K: If I have no centre, there is no other centre. I want to question the whole structure of duality. I don't accept it. You have accepted it. Our philosophy, our judgement, everything is based on this acceptance. The `I' and the `not-I' and all the complications arising out of it, and I want to, if I may, question the whole structure of duality. So, the `I' is the only centre. From there, the `not-I' arises and the relationship between the `I' and the `not-I' inevitably brings about conflict. There is only the centre from which arises the other centre, the `you'. I think that is fairly clear; at least for me. Don't accept it.

M: How does this centre arise? Because I have this centre, I create the other centre.

K: I am coming to that. I don't want to answer that yet. In the waking state, the centre creates the other centre. In that, the whole problem of relationship arises, and therefore duality arises, the conflicts, the attempt to overcome duality. It is the centre that creates this division. I see that in the waking state because there is a centre, its relationship will always be divided. Division is space and time and where there is time and space as division, there must inevitably be conflict. That is simple, clear. So I see during the waking state, what is going on all the time is adjustment, comparison, violence, imitation. When the centre goes to sleep it maintains the division even when it sleeps.

SWS: What do you mean by saying the centre goes to sleep?

K: We don't know what that state is. We are going to investigate.

S: In waking consciousness the experiencer is the centre.

K: The experiencer is the centre, the centre is memory, the centre is knowledge, which is always in the past. The centre may project into the future but it still has its roots in the past.

D: The centre is the present, I don't know the past or the future.

K: You would never say that, if you have a centre.

D: So far as my identity is concerned, the past and the future are only accretions, I have nothing to do with them. I am the present. A: You are the child of the past, you are the heir to everything of the past.

D: Not at all. That is an hypothesis. How do I know the past?

K: The language you are speaking in, English, is the result of the past.

P: If one exists, the other exists.

D: That is a theory.

A: How can that be a theory? The very fact that you come into existence implies that you are the child of the past.

D: I don't know the past, I don't know the future.

P: If one is free of both the past and the future, then there is no problem. Let us talk about people who are concerned with the past.

D: I am a very small nonentity with a feeling of `I'-ness. I know nothing about the past or the future.

A: Is the `I' not created and produced by the totality of the past - my father, my grandfather? How can I deny that? My consciousness itself is made up of the past.

P: There is the personal, racial, human past. Look, Deshpande, I remember the discussion of yesterday and the discussion comes in the way of my discussing today.

D: My position is, I don't know about the past or the future. It is an accretion.

A: Deshpandeji, when you say I am the present, please think. Do you mean to say that you are only this moment, with no past and no future? Is it a theory or a fact? Then you are in samadhi.

K: just a minute, sir. Let us be quiet. You speak English. That is an accretion. What is the centre that accretes?

D: That centre I call `I', but I don't know. K: So the centre which has accumulated is the `I'. D: The accumulator and the accumulated are not the same.

K: Who is the centre that is accumulating? Is there a centre without accumulation? Is the centre different from the thing it has accumulated?

D: I can't answer that.

M: All that is the content of consciousness.

K: We said the content of consciousness is consciousness. If there is no consciousness, there is no accumulation.

M: I have not said that.

K: I have said it, we started with it.

M: The content of consciousness is consciousness. That means, when there is no content there is no consciousness.

K: That is what it means.

D: So it means that there is non-dual consciousness.

K: No, no. That is a speculation. Stick to what we started out with. Consciousness is its content. The content is consciousness. This is an absolute fact.

A: Sir, at any given time, this `I' is not able to command the whole field of consciousness as its purview of perception. In my perception, I don't see the whole field.

K: Because there is a centre. Where there is a centre, there is fragmentation.

P: The `I' is only operational through a process of thinking which is fragmentary.

K: That is all.

A: What I thought was that the content of consciousness has to be part of my field of perception. Is it not so? P: If it were part of my perception, then the whole content of consciousness is consciousness and there is nothing else. Then I would rest with consciousness. I would remain there. But I sit in front of you and say, `Show me the way,' and you keep on saying `The moment you ask the way, you will never know the way.' We still ask you to show the way.

S: The first point is that we experience only fragmentarily and not total consciousness.

K: That is what I am saying. As long as there is a centre, there must be fragmentation and the fragmentation is the `me' and the `you' and the conflict in that relationship.

S: Are you equating this centre with consciousness or is it a fragment of total consciousness?

K: The centre is the content of consciousness.

S: So consciousness itself is fragmented?

P: You say this centre is time-space, you also seem to postulate the possibility of going beyond the field of time-space. The centre is that which operates. It is not able to go beyond. If it could, time and space would cease to be the content of consciousness.

K: Let us start again. The content of consciousness is consciousness. That is irrefutable. The centre is the maker of fragments. the centre becomes aware of the fragments when the fragments are agitated or in action; otherwise, the centre is not conscious of the other fragments. The centre is the observer of the fragments. The centre does not identify itself with the fragments. So there is always the observer and the observed, and the thinker and the experience. So, the centre is the maker of fragments and the centre tries to gather the fragments together and go beyond. One of the fragments says, `sleep' and one of the fragments says `keep awake'. In the state of keeping awake, there is disorder. The brain cells during sleep try to bring order because you cannot function effectively in disorder. S: The brain tries to bring order. Is that process dualistic or non-dualistic?

K: I'll show it to you. The brain cells demand order. Otherwise, they cannot function. There is no duality in this. During the day, there is disorder because the centre is there, the centre is the cause of fragmentation; fragmentation it knows only through fragments; it is not conscious of the totality of fragments and, therefore, there is no order and therefore, it lives in disorder. It is disorder. though it says 'I must experience', it is living in disorder, living in confusion. It cannot do anything else but create disorder because it functions only in fragmentation. Right sir?

A: Yes, sir. It is so.

K: The brain cells need order; otherwise, they become neurotic, destructive. That is a fact. The brain cells are always demanding order and the centre is always creating fragmentation. The brain cells need order. This order is denied when there is a centre because the centre is always creating destruction, division, conflict and all the rest of it, which is a denial of security, which is denial of order. There is no duality. This process is going on. The brain saying `I must have order', is not duality.

A: Are they two independent movements?

P: I feel we are moving away from the thing which is tangible to us.

K: This is very tangible.

P: It is not tangible. The brain cells seeking order is not tangible.

K: I will show it to you in a minute.

S: Pupulji, the whole physical world, in spite of chaos, maintains an extraordinary order. It is the very nature of the universe to maintain order.

P: The scientists' sense of time is not a real thing to us. The brain cells seeking order is not a real thing with us. I don't know but it may be. You are moving away from a fact to a fact which is beyond our comprehension.

K: P, we both see the point. Where there is a centre, there must be conflict, there must be fragmentation, there must be every form of division between the `you' and the `me', but the centre is creating this division. How do you know?

P: Because I have observed it in myself?

K: Verbally or factually?

P: Factually.

K: The centre is the maker of fragments. The centre is the fragment. This whole field is disorder. How are you aware of this disorder?

P: I have seen it.

K: Wait, you are not answering my question. Forgive me. I am asking you. How are you aware of this disorder? If it is the centre that is aware that it is disorder, then it is still disorder.

P: I see that.

K: You see that when the centre is aware that this is disorder then it creates a duality as order and disorder. So, how do you observe disorder - without the centre or with the centre? If it is an observation with the centre, there is a division. If there is no observation of the centre, then there is only disorder.

P: Or order.

K: Wait. Please go slowly. When the centre is aware that there is disorder, there is division, and this division is the very essence of disorder. When the centre is not there and aware, what takes place?

P: Then there is no centre; no disorder.

K: Therefore, what has taken place? There is no disorder. That is a fact. That is what the brain cells demand. P: When you bring that in, you take this away. Let us now proceed.

K: Stop there. So I have discovered something, that the centre creates space and time. Where there is space and time, there must be division in relationship and, therefore, disorder in relationship. Having disorder in relationship, it creates further disorder because that is the very nature of the centre. There is not only disorder in relationship, there is disorder in thought, action, idea.

P: I want to ask you a question: Which is the fact - the perception of order or..?

K: You are only aware of disorder. Just listen. I am also feeling my way, you understand. I see the centre is the source of disorder wherever it moves - in relationship, in thought, in action, in perception. There is the perceiver and the perceived. So, wherever the centre operates, moves, functions, has its momentum, there must be division, conflict and all the rest of it. Where there is the centre, there is disorder. Disorder is the centre. How are you aware? Is the centre aware of the disorder or is there only disorder? If there is no centre to be aware of disorder, there is complete order. Then the fragments come to an end, obviously, because there is no centre which is making the fragments.

P: In that sense, the moment the fragments exist, the reality is the fragment. When the fragments end, the reality is non-fact. So, there is no division. You are back into the Vedantic position.

K: I refuse to accept it.

P: I am putting it to you.

A: I would say that when you say that `I' is the source and the centre of disorder, or the centre is the source and it is disorder, that is a fact for me. When you say that if there is no centre observing that disorder -

K: No. I asked: Who is observing the disorder? Achyutji, see this. There is no consciousness of order. And that is the beauty of order. P: What does the word `reality' mean to you?

K: Nothing.

P: What do you mean by that? I would like to explore that word `nothing'.

K: When it is something, it is not aware.

A: The field of cognition is the field of unreality.

K: No, be careful, sir. Just a minute. Leave that now. Let us go into the question of the dream because that is apparently one of the fragments of our life. What are dreams? What is the matrix of the structure of dreams? How do they happen?

Q: It happens when desires are not fulfilled during the day.

K: So, you are saying during the day I desire something and it has not been fulfilled, carried out, it has not been worked out. So, the desire continues.

P: Why do we go beyond? Thought is an endless process without a beginning, expelled from the brain cells. In the same way, there is a period when the mind is totally asleep; it is another form of the same propulsion.

K: It is exactly the same thing. The movement of the day still goes on. So, the centre which is the factor of disorder, creating disorder during the day, still goes on, the movement which becomes dreams, symbolic or otherwise, is the same movement.

M: You keep on saying that the centre is the source of disorder.

K: The centre is disorder, not the source.

M: The sense of `I' is a constant demand longing for order. There is nobody to create it, and I am in this world begging for order, searching for order, and all the duality is a given duality, not a created duality.

K: No, sorry.

M: I find it is so. I don't want duality. K: This search itself is duality. All our life is a search for non-duality.

M: I know that whatever I do is for the sake of order. The order may be temporary, a petty little order, but still there is no gesture, there is no posture of mind which does not aim at order, whether one is eating, drinking or sleeping. It also makes life possible. So, chaos is something which is imposed on me, disorder is forced on me. That is my observation. If you say it is not, then my observation and your observation differ.

P: In all observations, we have sat with Krishnaji and we have observed the self in operation and the nature of the self has been revealed.

M: No, it is only an hypothesis. We are playing with words. The mind is incapable of co-ordinating the factors. There is no such thing as a revelation in this, sir. There is nobody to tell us.

P: I agree. The very process of self-observation reveals it. It is not somebody telling you.

K: This man says this centre is the source of disorder. The movement of daily life continues in sleep. It is the same movement and dreams are the expression of that `me'. When I wake up, I say `I have had dreams'. That is only a means of communication; dreams are `me', dreams are not separate from the centre which has created this movement, this disorder. The next factor is deep sleep. Are you aware when you are deeply asleep?

S: Who is aware that there has been deep sleep? One is not conscious of deep sleep. You don't say: `I have had an extraordinary sleep.' You may say: `I have had no dreams, I had a peaceful sleep.'

P: It is really saying that you have had a good sleep.

M: When I am deeply asleep, I am fully aware that I have no thoughts, I have no consciousness.

K: So, all that one can say is: `I have had a very good sleep without dreams.' How does one investigate that state which is without dreams, a state which you called just now deep sleep? Do you do it through the conscious mind or a theory, or by repeating what somebody has said about it? How do you go into it?

S: The sleep has to reveal itself. Otherwise, you cannot go into the other state.

K: Why do you want to go into it?

S: Because I want to know whether it is the same state.

P: There is a state of being `awake' and a state of `deep sleep'.

SWS: My own experience is that when there is a sleep without dream, there is no centre. Then the centre comes again, it remembers that I have slept without dreams, again the centre starts its operation.

S: Deep sleep is a sleep without a centre.

K: Why don't we only talk about what is knowable?

P: But you wanted to investigate deep sleep. Is it possible to investigate deep sleep?

D: I see only one fact: in sleep there is no centre.

K: That gentleman said deep sleep means no centre.

M: Deep sleep means very low intensity of consciousness.

P: I asked the question: Is it possible to investigate into deep sleep?

K: What do you mean by `investigate'? Can I investigate, can the centre investigate? You watch the film at the cinema. You are not identifying with it; you are not part of it; you are merely observing.

S: What is it that is observing without identifying?

K: There is no one to observe. There is only observation.

S: What Pupul is asking is: Can deep sleep be investigated? K: We understand that. Can it be revealed, can it be exposed, can it be observable? I say `yes'. Can I observe you, just observe without naming? Of course, it is possible. The observer is the centre, the observer is the past, the observer is the divider; the observer is the space between you and me.

P: First of all, you should have the tools, the instruments with which this is possible. One has to have a state of awareness where this is possible. It is only when there is this state of awareness or jagriti, that it is possible.

K: Is there an observation of this disorder without the centre becoming aware that there is disorder? If that can be solved, I have solved the whole momentum of it. What is order? We said the centre can never be aware of order. Then, what is that state? Then, what is virtue of which there is no consciousness of being virtuous? What man traditionally accepts as virtue is practice. Vanity practising humility is still vanity. Then, what is virtue? It is a state in which there is no consciousness of being virtuous. I am just exploring. If the centre is aware that it has humility, it is not humility. Virtue is a state of mind where it is not conscious that it is virtuous. Therefore, it topples all the practices, all the sadhanas. To see disorder not from a centre is order. That order you cannot be conscious of. If you are conscious of it, it is disorder.